The God of Ruin’s Pocket Change

CHAPTER 7: The Currency of Soul

The Quarter in Vex’s hand didn't just shine; it screamed.

It was a high-pitched, oscillating frequency that drilled straight into the base of the skull. To me, it was annoying, like a mosquito buzzing in a quiet room. But to everyone else, it was a command from God.

Twitch and his two goons dropped instantly. They didn't even have time to whimper. They hit the pristine white marble of the plaza floor face-first, pinned down by an invisible gravity. Foam bubbled at the corners of Twitch’s mouth.

Anya crumpled. She fell to one knee, clutching her chest, gasping for air as if the atmosphere had suddenly turned into solid lead.

"Kneel," Vex said smoothly, his voice amplified by the coin’s resonance. "The weight of silver commands you."

He stood there in his purple silk suit, smiling that oily, practiced smile. The Quarter ($0.25) pulsed with a rhythmic white light between his fingers.

I looked down at Anya. Her face was pale, veins bulging in her neck as she fought to keep her head up.

"Make it stop," she wheezed through gritted teeth. "It’s... too heavy."

I looked back at Vex. He was waiting for me to collapse. He adjusted his monocle, expecting to see me groveling in the dirt like the others.

I didn't kneel. I didn't even slouch.

I took a step forward.

Vex’s smile faltered. He held the coin higher, focusing its beam directly at my chest.

"I said, kneel!" Vex barked, losing his cool demeanor. "This is twenty-five cents of pure equity! The fiscal pressure should be crushing your bones!"

"It's a quarter," I said, taking another step. "And George Washington looks disappointed in you."

I stopped right in front of him. I was a foot taller than Vex, and I used every inch of it to look down on him.

Vex took a stumbling step back. The coin was trembling in his hand.

"How?" he whispered. "The scanners... you have no ID. You have no credit rating. You should be flattened. You should be zero."

I reached out.

Vex flinched, expecting a strike.

Instead, I gently pinched the Quarter between my thumb and forefinger.

"Let go," I said.

Vex didn't want to let go, but he didn't have a choice. I plucked the coin from his grip as easily as taking candy from a toddler.

As soon as the coin left his hand, the pressure in the plaza vanished.

Twitch sucked in a massive breath, coughing violently. Anya collapsed forward onto her hands, heaving dry sobs.

I held the Quarter up to the artificial sunlight.

"It's warm," I noted.

But it was more than warm. Now that I was holding it, I could feel what Anya had warned me about. It wasn't just metal. There was a vibration inside it—a heartbeat.

Actually, it felt like many heartbeats.

I squinted, activating a sliver of my Divine Sight. The silver surface of the coin seemed to dissolve, revealing a swirling vortex of mist inside. In the mist, I saw faces. Hundreds of them. Screaming. Working. Aging.

I saw a man breaking rocks until his back gave out. I saw a woman sewing until her fingers bled. I saw a child staring at a wall, waiting for time to pass.

"Time," I whispered. "It's made of time."

The realization hit me harder than the gravity field. This wasn't just a currency backed by gold or oil. It was backed by stolen life. Twenty-five cents represented twenty-five years of human existence, compressed into a cold, hard disc.

I looked at Vex with new eyes. He wasn't just a sleazy businessman. He was a slaver carrying a pocket full of ghosts.

"Give it back!" Vex shrieked, his composure shattering. "That’s Company property! That’s a quarter of a century of labor! You can't just hold it bare-handed! The radiation will melt your skin!"

I tossed the coin into the air and caught it.

"My skin is fine," I said coldly. "But yours is looking a little sweaty."

I flicked the coin back at him.

I didn't use my full strength—I didn't want to punch a hole through his chest—but I put enough spin on it to make a point.

The Quarter hit Vex in the center of his forehead.

Vex flew backward. He slid across the polished marble floor, his expensive purple shoes squeaking, until he crashed into a fountain filled with blue water.

"We're leaving," I said, turning to my crew. "Get up."

Anya shakily got to her feet. She looked at me with a mixture of terror and confusion.

"You touched it," she whispered. "You held a Quarter and you didn't even flinch. Who are you?"

"I'm the guy who wants lunch," I said, grabbing her arm to steady her. "And this place is ruining my appetite."

We hustled away from the plaza before Vex could climb out of the fountain. The Golden Zone was massive, a labyrinth of white towers and floating walkways, so it was easy to disappear into the foot traffic.

But the mood had shifted.

Twitch and his goons were silent. They walked behind me with their heads down, terrified. They had felt the weight of the Quarter, and they knew I had swatted it away like a fly.

We found a quiet spot in a park—a synthetic garden with plastic trees that smelled like fresh pine.

"Sit," I commanded.

Anya sat on a bench. She looked pale.

"Explain," I said. "Not the economy. The sensation. What did you feel when he held that coin up?"

Anya rubbed her chest. "It felt like... like drowning. But not in water. In years."

She looked up at me, her grey eyes haunted.

"When you're poor, time is heavy, Russ. You feel every second ticking away because you're trading it for survival. That coin? It projected that feeling times a million. It felt like I aged twenty years in ten seconds. It felt like I was dying of old age."

I nodded slowly.

"It's a weapon," I said. "They weaponized the concept of debt."

"Of course it's a weapon," Anya snapped, though her voice lacked its usual bite. "Why do you think the rich are untouchable? You can't get close to them. If a Billionaire walks down the street, the sheer pressure of their wallet would flatten an entire city block. They don't need guards. They have net worth."

I put my hand in my pocket. I touched the $10 bill wrapped in lead foil.

If a Quarter ($0.25) was twenty-five years of pressure...

Then ten dollars ($10.00) was...

One thousand years.

A millennium of gravity. A millennium of stolen time.

If I unwrapped this bill, I wouldn't just crush Vex. I would crush this entire district.

"I need a drink," I muttered.

"We need a room," Anya corrected, regaining some of her composure. "We can't stay on the streets. Vex has seen your face. He knows you're an anomaly. He’ll call the Hunters, or worse, the Bankers."

"Bankers?"

"The elite hit-squads," she shuddered. "You don't want to meet them. We need to get indoors. Somewhere with thick walls."

"A hotel," I suggested.

"Hotels in the Golden Zone are expensive," she said. "And we have a problem. You have too much money."

"Rich people problems," I sighed. "Tragic."

"I'm serious. You can't pay with the Ten. And you gave the Quarter back to Vex. We have the aluminum cans, but that's barely enough for a cup of coffee here."

I looked at Twitch.

"Check your pockets," I ordered.

Twitch patted his ragged pants. "I have... a piece of string, Master. And a button."

"A button?"

He held it out. It was a standard, white plastic button.

I took it.

"System," I whispered.

[ITEM: PLASTIC BUTTON.]

[VALUE: $0.00000001]

"Worthless," I muttered.

I needed to cheat. I needed to do what I did with the rats and the rusted tray. I needed to create value out of nothing.

I looked at the button again. I focused. I poured a tiny drop of my celestial intent into it. I didn't change its molecular structure; I changed its story.

This isn't a button, I told the universe. This is a pearl from the Great Abyss.

The button shimmered. It didn't change shape, but suddenly, it looked... important. It caught the light in a way plastic shouldn't.

"Let's go," I said. "I know how we're paying."

We walked for another twenty minutes until we found a building that looked like a hotel. It was called The Gilded Lily. It was a towering structure of glass and gold leaf. A doorman in a tuxedo stood out front, sneering at anyone who walked by with less than a dollar in their account.

We approached the entrance. The doorman stepped forward, holding up a hand.

"Deliveries are in the back," he said, looking at Twitch’s shoeless boots with open disgust.

"We're guests," I said.

The doorman laughed. "Guests? Sir, the lobby air conditioning costs more than your life. Move along before I call sanitation."

I stepped into his personal space. I held up the button.

"Do you know what this is?" I asked, my voice low and conspiratorial.

The doorman looked at the button. He frowned. "It's... a button."

"That's what they want you to think," I whispered. "This is a prototype. A compression chip from the Sky Cities. It holds the value of a Nickel, condensed into polymer."

The doorman’s eyes widened. "A Nickel?"

"I'm on a covert mission," I lied smoothly. "I need a suite. Top floor. No questions asked. I'm paying with this."

I pressed the button into his gloved hand.

The System, confused by my divine interference, glitched.

[SCANNING...]

[ITEM: UNKNOWN POLYMER.]

[RADIATING HIGH-TIER AURA.]

[ESTIMATED VALUE: $0.04 - $0.06]

The doorman looked at his scanner. His jaw dropped.

"Four cents..." he breathed. "Sir... this is... this is incredibly generous."

"Keep the change," I said, breezing past him. "And get my friends some shoes. They’re embarrassing me."

"Right away, sir! Right away!" The doorman bowed so low his hat fell off. He scrambled to open the heavy glass doors for us.

We walked into the lobby.

It was magnificent. Crystal chandeliers, velvet carpets, and a fountain in the center that sprayed liquid gold or maybe just yellow water.

Twitch and his boys were hyperventilating again. Anya looked like she was waiting for the ceiling to collapse.

I walked up to the reception desk. The woman the counter looked like a porcelain doll—flawless, cold, and expensive.

"Checking in?" she asked, eyeing my hoodie.

"Presidential Suite," I said. "And send up room service. I want a burger. A real one. If it tastes like rat, I'm buying this hotel and firing you."

The receptionist blinked. She looked at the doorman, who gave her a frantic 'thumbs up' from the entrance.

"Of course, sir," she typed rapidly. "Room 500. The Penthouse. Enjoy your stay."

She handed me a key card made of actual sapphire.

I tossed it to Anya.

"You're carrying the bags," I said.

We walked toward the golden elevators.

"You did it again," Anya whispered, clutching the key card like a lifeline. "You scammed the System."

"I didn't scam anyone," I said, pressing the button for the 500th floor. "I just adjusted their perspective."

The elevator doors closed, sealing us in a box of luxury.

But as the elevator rose, my stomach dropped.

I felt it again. A ping.

Not from the drone. Not from the System.

From my pocket.

The Ten Dollar Bill was getting warmer. It was reacting to something.

We're going up, I realized. Closer to the sky. Closer to the source.

"Russ?" Anya asked, seeing my face. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I lied, clutching my pocket. "Just hungry."